Saturday, April 7, 2012

Love and Necessity

"And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Corinthians, 15:14)
"It
behooved Christ to rise again ... for our instruction in the faith,
since our belief in Christ's Godhead is confirmed by His rising again."
(Summa III.53.1)
"The Resurrection of the crucified one shows that he was truly "I AM", the Son of God and God himself." (Catechism, 653)

It seems that it had to be that way. He had to be touched by
Mary Magdalene, to eat fish with the apostles, to break bread with the
disciples on the road to Emmaus, to cook dinner on the shores of the sea
of Tiberias. Thomas the Doubter had to "put his finger into his
hands ... his hand into his side" in order that we all might believe.
It was necessary that Christ should rise incarnate, in the flesh, in the
same body in which he had lived for thirty-three years. Had he chosen
to leave that body behind, he would no longer have been one of us, and
we could not have been so sure of his divinity.

Now that I have been blindingly orthodox, I am going to ask a
question which will sound impious at best. Clearly, it was important
that Christ should rise from the dead, and likewise that he should
ascend into heaven visibly and in the flesh. But why should he retain
that human flesh in heaven? (And no, I'm sorry, the retort "why not"
ain't going to cut it for me.) It doesn't seem that he has to.

Objection 1.
It seems that the Son of God ought not to retain his human nature after
the Last Judgment. For it was necessary that he should rise as a man
for our instruction in faith, as has been said (Summa III.53.1), and it was likewise necessary that he ascend in the flesh, and in the flesh make intercession for us (Hebrews 9:24), and judge us as a man (as has also been proven, Summa III.59.2).
But it would seem to be superfluous after these things, that he should
retain his humanity; and in God there is no superfluity, because he is a
necessary Being. Therefore, it seems that the Son will not to retain
his human nature after the Last Judgment.

Objection 2. Furthermore, as has been objected elsewhere in this work,
"it is not fitting to unite things that are infinitely apart," such as
God and man; and if, though not absolutely fitting, it was so for our
salvation, it seems that once the necessity for salvation has passed, it
would be more fitting that the union should cease. Therefore, it seems
that the Son will not retain his human nature after the Last Judgment.

Objection 3.
Furthermore, it is acknowledged by the faithful that all things exist
for the glory of God. But that God should remain as man in eternity
seems rather to give glory to human beings; therefore, it seems that the
Son will not retain his human nature after the Last Judgment.

On the contrary, when we pray the creed, we say that "He is seated at the right hand of the Father." And St. John Damascene writes in explanation (Defide orth. 4:2) that "we understand the right hand of the Father to be the glory and
honour of the Godhead in which the Son of God, who existed as God before
the ages, and is of like essence to the Father, and in the end became
flesh, has a seat in the body, His flesh sharing in the glory. For He
along with His flesh is adored with one adoration by all creation."

I answer that,
it is not perhaps necessary, in the strictest sense of the word, for
the Son of God to retain his humanity after the Last Judgment, but it is
clear from Scripture that he will do so. Daniel writes (7:13-14)
that the Father ("the Ancient of days") gives Christ ("one like the son
of man") "power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples,
tribes and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power
that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be
destroyed." Again, St. Paul writes (Philippians 2:9-10) that "God also hath exalted [Christ], and hath given him a name which is above all names:
That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth."
Now in these passages, it is to Christ Jesus that the power and the
glory and the kingdom are given: for the authors say "one like the son
of man" and "Jesus," thereby indicating his humanity; and these things
are furthermore given to him for all times ("everlasting") and in all
places ("in heaven, on earth, and under the earth"), indicating the permanence and universality of his reign.

Reply to Objection 1.
The one making the objection is mistaken in supposing that the only
alternative to strict necessity is superfluity; for in fact many things
are neither strictly necessary nor superfluous but either contingently
necessary or proper or something of that sort. Furthermore, the one
making the objection seems to suppose that "necessary being" means "one
who can act only out of necessity." If that were true, God could not
have created anything, much less become incarnate, which is patently
false. To put it plainly, the fact that God "must" exist does not mean
that he must do or not do certain things; on the contrary, it means that
his freedom to do and not do is unlimited.

Reply to Objection 2.
The reply to the original objection argued that it was fitting for
man's salvation for human flesh to be united to God, although purely in itself the union would have been unfitting, because of the disparity of dignity. And
just as God desired to save man, so that the Incarnation was fitting for that purpose, even so God has desired that man should participate in God's divinity, making it fitting for that purpose for his Son to retain human nature even after the Judgment. Hence it is written (1 John 3:2) "we shall
be like to him."

Reply to Objection 3. It is right to
insist that all things exist for the glory of God. But those who
understand that glory to be opposed to God's love for and condescension
towards the human race are thinking not as God does but as men do—as if
God had only so much glory, and by giving some to men, he diminished
himself; when in fact the exact opposite is true. For God came not only
to free us, but to raise us to himself; and so we are called "sons of
God," and again, "not servants, but friends." As St. Augustine puts it
(xiii de Temp.), "God was made man, that man might be made God." This
"full participation in the Divinity" (Summa III.1.2),
which the Incarnation made possible, is wholly beyond any human merit
or desert; and it is precisely because of our poverty in this regard
that God's great love is made clear, for which cause we give him even
greater glory than we would otherwise have done, had his love for us
been less manifest to our understanding.

For our love is like
ourselves: being small in stature, and apt to
fail, it seeks after what is good. But God's Love is like God; rather, God's Love is God, and
"God is Love;" and that which Love loves, by the selfsame act He makes
good. And just as a human lover, because he wills the good for his
beloved, is "placed outside himself," as they say,
so too God in willing our good "'is placed outside Himself.'" And the
human lover becomes like the beloved accidentally, that is, without intending it, through loving
the beloved for the goodness it has which he lacks. But the Divine
Love becomes like the beloved knowingly, though in accidental things:
because He loves the beloved not for her goodness, but from His own, and
in so loving desires to raise the beloved towards Himself, and so stoops, as it were, to meet her, and pours Himself out to fill
her emptiness. Nor does Love in so loving abandon His nature—for it is the
nature of Love to stoop, and to give everything away—and likewise it
is the nature of Love, which is infinite, never to be emptied, to lose nothing by this
pouring out of self, but rather to make all that He touches, and all
that He fills, also love.